


Challenge Accepted

by 26stars



Series: How I Met Melinda [16]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU Meeting, Can be read as flirty or just mentor/mentee, F/F, Gym AU, Homeless Skye, I can't do a chin-up but watching youtube for research sure made me want to try, Lincoln has a walk-through, Skye's always been starstruck by May this is canon, rivals au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25643779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Rivals AU+ this prompt: “i came to the gym to work out but holy god i can’t stop watching you do one armed push-ups that’s so hot” AUWhere else is a better place to find a rival?
Relationships: Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Melinda May/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Series: How I Met Melinda [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/797127
Comments: 20
Kudos: 79
Collections: AOS AU August 2020, Women of the MCU





	Challenge Accepted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_eh_team](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_eh_team/gifts).



> Kicking off AU August with this fic that's been languishing in my documents folder for like three years. Thanks Libby for organizing this event!
> 
> For my MVP :)

Skye ducks through the gym door with her hood up and her head down, barely making eye contact with the young man behind the customer service desk. Lincoln barely jerks his chin at her in acknowledgement, reaching for the button on his desk that unlocks the gate, and Skye flashes him a brief smile as she hurries through the turnstile sans gym membership card. She heads straight for the locker room and hurries up to the padlocked place where she stores her minimal toiletries, stowing her bag and hoodie and heading to the main area. She doesn’t consider herself much of a gym rat, but if anyone paying attention noticed how often she was here, they would probably disagree. She’s really just here for a free shower, but running a few laps and working on a little muscle strength is hardly a wasted opportunity—she knows her heart will thank her one day.

Skye slips in her headphones as she makes her way to the track. Her Goodwill running shoes probably aren’t doing her feet any favors, but she’s been working her sedentary body up to thirty straight minutes of running, and she’s at least a little proud of that. Sports were never her thing growing up, but health is always a better-late-than-never thing, she’s heard. She tries to avoid eye contact with everyone in the gym on principle, lest anyone question her presence, and that’s easy enough to do on a track when you’re all moving the same direction.

When she makes her way to the weight-machine area after her not-all-that-impressive run a bit later, Skye finds it mostly deserted, like she’d been hoping. It’s mid-morning on a weekday—most people aren’t free to be at the gym right now. The only ones around are a pair of guys who look like they might be in college (or maybe freshly graduated and still unemployed…) and an Asian woman in black that Skye has never seen before.

A woman currently chinning herself effortlessly on one of the pull-up bars.

_Wow._

Skye pulls her gaze away and moves to the mats where she slips her feet under a bar and starts a set of crunches. In the mirror in front of her, she sees the woman drop down from the chin-up bar and head for the mats as well, which for some reason makes Skye’s heartbeat pick up a little.

_Oh come on, just let me embarrass myself in solitude…_

The woman gets down a few feet away and starts her own crunches, and Skye nearly gives up in shame. Anyone more fit might challenge themselves to keep up with the person next to them, but Skye just muddles through her own routine and tries to ignore the woman in the corner of her eye. She almost succeeds until the woman switches into a push-up position and starts doing a few.

With one hand.

_Mother of god…_

Skye gets to her feet right then and heads for the showers. That woman may be _goals_ , but it’s way too much to stomach today.

She sees the woman the next time she’s at the gym, owning the room like before and putting Skye to shame. Skye keeps her headphones in and mixes up her routine, trying to give the woman a wide berth, but now Skye can’t help checking out her arms when she’s in sight, since they’re so obviously killer…

A few days after that, Skye tries to arrive earlier in order to miss the Asian woman, but this only results in them crossing paths in the locker room.

And really, a glimpse of that woman’s abs as she changes clothes is literally the last thing Skye needed…

If she knew what was good for her, Skye would have quit showing up in the block of time she kept seeing the woman. Sure, she needed to come sometime in the morning, when Lincoln was working, since he was the only one who would let her in without a membership. She could have come earlier…but the likelihood of her waking up before 8am in order to exercise was already slim, and the gym was so crowded early in the day that it really wasn’t any better for her ego...

So after a couple of weeks of seeing the powerhouse of a woman absolutely _owning_ the gym, Skye is no longer just intimidated, she’s a little…inspired.

So.

So she starts keeping a note in her phone of the exercises that she sees the woman do. How many moves, sets, reps, how much rest time in between…

The first time Skye tries to do a single set of anything from that note, she almost dies.

_What is that woman even made of, that she makes this look easy?_

So she backs it up and starts smaller. Less weight, fewer reps, fewer sets. It's better, but still exhausting. Her manager at work wants to know why she’s grimacing through nearly every movement during her shift. She can’t even say it’s a good excuse, but after a week or two, when the exercises start getting a little bit easier each time, Skye just feels…awesome.

But now she’s got something else making her sweat too—the fact that every now and then, she opens her locker and finds something in there that wasn’t there before. Nothing stolen, just…something extra.

First, it’s a bottle of shampoo. Then it’s a couple of power bars. The next time, a pair of fingerless weightlifting gloves, which she’s so far been going without and earning blisters and callouses for.

But as much as she appreciates the gifts, Skye can’t help but stress—how does someone have the combination to her padlock? And why aren’t they stealing anything? Her car keys are in there, for god’s sake…

She asks Lincoln about it, and he patiently reminds her that he’s not allowed in the women’s locker room. Also, there are no cameras in there, so he can’t clue her in on who’s doing it.

So after changing the padlock once and still finding another anonymous gift inside three days later, Skye devises her own test—she leaves her phone in the locker with the camera positioned outward, turns on the video, and leaves it recording while she goes to work out.

When she checks her phone after exercising though, the video function is no longer recording, and the last video has been deleted.

Seriously.

_All right then, keep your secrets._

Skye is later shocked when, the next morning, she is in the middle of working on managing a chin-up when the Asian woman suddenly materializes at her feet.

“You don’t have to start there,” the woman says, and Skye is so startled that she drops from the bar immediately.

“You should just start with hangs,” the woman goes on, ignoring Skye’s obvious gape. “Thirty seconds, three times a session. Do that for a couple of weeks, let your arms get used to your own bodyweight and your hands and forearms get used to the grip. After that, just try some shoulder depressions, hanging and letting your shoulders move back.”

Skye must have looked like a clueless fish with her eyes wide and mouth open, because the woman just smirks knowingly and moves up to the bar.

“Like this.”

She demonstrates the move she was describing, and Skye is finally able to react, smiling slightly.

“Thanks. That’s super helpful.”

The Asian woman nods, cracking a surprisingly friendly smile as she starts to shift away. “Be patient with yourself. The last thing you need is a self-inflicted injury, trying to do too much too fast.”

“What’s your name?” Skye asks quickly, before she misses her shot.

The woman glances back with a lingering smile, still moving towards the mats. “Melinda.”

“I’m Skye.”

The woman nods, waving as she turns away.

“Go for it, Skye.”

Now that the ice is broken, Skye has an easier time approaching the woman when it feels safe to do so.

“Where can I get some of those bands?” she asks one day, eyeing the huge rubber-band looking things that some girls had brought in with them today, using them for resistance training and also assistance on the chin-up bars.

“Most sports suppliers sell them,” Melinda answers. She’s been doing crunches with a plate weight held over her chest and she’s still not even out of breath. It’s infuriating. “But I have one in my locker if you want to use it.”

“No, that’s okay,” Skye says, suddenly embarrassed and backing away. She really can’t afford to be shelling out for something just for the gym. “I’ll see if there are any in the lost and found.”

The next day though, she opens her locker to find a brand-new band, still in its packaging, at just the size she was hoping for.

This is way too on the nose, so Skye marches right out to the gym to find Melinda.

“I don’t need handouts,” she says, holding up the band.

“Is that what you call gifts?” Melinda says, dropping down from the chin-up bar herself.

Skye blushes, looking down as she holds out the band. “I can’t accept this.”

“Why not? I think you’re ready for it.”

Skye sighs. “Because I’m not even supposed to be here,” she admits, “and now I’m just mostly here to stare at you and try to catch up to your level.”

“Well. You’ve been doing a decent job of it. I’m really impressed with how much you’ve improved in the past couple of months.”

Skye looks up, surprised, and Melinda smirks.

“You’re not the only one who’s been watching someone here.”

Skye barely knows how to react, so she goes with her gut. “Can I buy you a coffee?” she blurts before she can change her mind.

Melinda puts one hand on her hip, but she’s smiling. “I don’t drink coffee. But I can buy you lunch.”

“I was trying to ask you first,” Skye protests, attempting to pout, but it’s hard to stop smiling.

“Are we always going to be competing?” Melinda asks. Her tone says it’s a joke, but Skye’s heart leaps at the suggestion of anything hinting at a future.

“I’m up for it if you are,” she grins.

Melinda smiles wider. “Challenge accepted.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've already got five more fics in the pipeline for the month, but they're not all going to be MayDaisy (or even just MayBobbi). Stick around for more fun!


End file.
